Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – Husband and Wife Bonding Projects
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Smilla Rahmanir Rahim Al hamdu lillahi Hamden girthier on the
Ubud Mubarak config Mubarak anally he can bow your head bottle buena
la Oba Jalla Jalla, who are in Manoa who Salatu was Salam ALA. So
you can have even Mustafa SallAllahu Tada, I think you are
and he asked me about like, I seldom at the Sleeman kefir on
helium we've been. So Inshallah, today the discussion is going to
be about something a bit different. And some time ago I did
a,
a talk on the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa salam and how when he
entered into Madina, Munawwara. As you know, from the history of
Madina, Munawwara. They used to be different tribes, they used to be
Arab tribes, they used to be Jewish tribes. And then, within
the Jewish tribes, there were three tribes, and some of them
were actually
difference with one another. And then you had the Muslim tribes,
the Olson huzzah Raj, even though they actually came from the same
ancestor, and they actually collectively called the Blue Kala,
that was their collective collective term. But they had this
skirmish and problem and difference that actually led to a
lot of violence, and that had been going on for decades. So when the
Prophet salallahu Salam came here, into Madina, Munawwara, from Maka,
maka, Rama, one of the first things that he started was this
community project, there was a number of things, one of them that
he did with the Jewish community, which is, was this agreement or
this deal, that everybody's going to protect one another. Medina,
the year three was ours, and we're each gonna protect each other from
invaders, that was a community wide thing, then, within the
Muslim community to bring them together.
A very smart move, really perfect move was the fact that he got them
to start on a community projects. And the community project, as most
of us will know, was Masjid Nabawi. And it was something that
everybody took part in. And that's why they felt that it belonged to
them. When you do community projects actually brings you close
together, it gives you something to do, it's obviously a voluntary
thing, it's not something you're doing as a paid job. When you're
doing something as a paid job. Generally, what happens is that
you're then choosy and picky about whether you want to do that job or
not. Because then it's about is it worth my time, because you expect
something in return for it. So there's all of those kinds of
decisions to make. But when it's something voluntary, that you're
doing as long as you enjoy doing it, or as long as there's a need
for it. And if it's both of those things, where there's a need and
you enjoy doing it, then you will really, really enjoy doing it. And
you'll feel really accomplished. And this helps on a number of
fronts. So today, what I want to discuss with us I want to actually
explore, I've got a list already of community projects that we
could get involved in now these are kind of generic things that
other people have compiled that I've taken. But I want us to then
think of specific things that we can think of that would be
relevant, more relevant to us, and maybe even more pressing and more
needed for us. And the reason why I say this is that husband and
wives doing this is going to start we want to start this on a husband
and wife level, on a couple's level, right? Because the benefit
of this is that some people just find their life very boring. And
the kinds of stories that we receive from husband and wives
who, even after years of being married, you know, two years of
being married 10 years of being married, they haven't really
broken the ice. They're living in some kind of really strange,
cultural,
some some really strange cultural.
As a very cultural couple, I would say that they are living the way
they may have seen other people in their family living who never
broke the ice, even after 3040 years of marriage. Like it's just
this, you can say this, living together, just so the convenience,
to produce children, to basically just fulfill the fact that, okay,
I need to be with a wife, I need to be with a husband, I need to be
married. And they're each just performing a few responsibilities
for each other. But there is no love or affection. There's no real
common goal as such. It's really strange. I mean, you know, some of
you would not even believe that that's the case. But this is the
case with some people, they just haven't broken eyes, because they
just have no idea how to come together.
And the focus is on the negatives of one another.
Nobody recognizes the positives. And the studies that the studies
that are
in psychology that have been done about this, what generally happens
over the case over the course of a long time, is that where there's
negatives that you start focusing on, then any good characteristic,
anything good, any good virtue is then last. It's not to say that
nobody that you know, these people don't have any good virtues, that
they have no excellent characteristics. Everybody does.
Like everybody has something good
Would you've seen people where they really criticize somebody
who's really bad, but then you must be able to find something
that's good about them. Now, obviously, some people are
dominantly going to have very bad characteristics. That's
possibility. But in order to help a husband and wife relationship,
or even family relationship, we extend that out to parents and
children relationship, brothers and sisters, right children and
parents, cousins, family wide as a whole, this can be expanded, and
then as a community,
you know, the community of our sisters of our community, right?
All of this really, really helps. One way to get together is to do a
common project. And doing something for our social society,
for our community is going to be a community project. And the benefit
of that will be that you will actually start having to trust one
another, having to rely on one another strengths, you know, where
one may be weak, okay, you do that part. And I'll do this part, you
know, you do this aspect of the job. And I'll do this aspect of
the job. When the unit were able to complement one another in that
regard, you'll see that you'll actually start appreciating,
you'll discover things about one another, that will be quite
amazing. I mean, on numerous projects, there'd be some people
the discussion would be should we involve them or not? Like, what do
you think they can do? And somebody said, No, involve them. I
think there'll be a good asset, when you involve them in the
martial law, they come out to be very, very helpful. So some people
have hidden talents, but because the environment hasn't been right,
the setting hasn't been the context hasn't been the right
place for them. They've never been an opportunity to that they've
just been constantly groaning and, and having a gripe about things.
Let people do these things. Subhan Allah and there's so many
different things. So today, what we're going to do is we're going
to look at that the benefits, aside from our social community
benefits that we will have how you will be able to benefit others
will be able to benefit ourselves, and spiritually speaking from a
divine perspective, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said
that will Allahu Fionnula, Abdi Makana lab do fi only he that a
Allah subhanho wa Taala will remain in your assistance, as long
as you remain in assistance of your brother or sister. So if
you're going to think about your brother and sister out there in
the community, other people, humanity in general as well, how
can we
do something better? How can we improve, then Allah will assist
you in your own issues. And that's huge. And, you know, we need to
just stop complaining about people look at this Masjid is doing this
than the other, it's not doing this, it's not doing that. And
there's lots of places they can always do more. Even the most
successful masajid. Even the most successful institutions, most
successful organizations that do a lot of things, they're just
relatively doing more things than others, every place can do more.
Because at the end of the day, it depends on what the needs are, if
you've identified the need, but the masjid can't figure it out the
Committee of the masjid or the organization, they just don't get
it. Well, maybe you can volunteer and give them some kind of
assurance that I'm willing to just help purely free. I'm not trying
to control anything, not trying to get a position. I'm not trying to
do this, because this is what people in their chairs are worried
about. And it's a sad fact. But let's just deal with it. It's a
sad fact. We're not talking about how to remove people from
committees here. We're talking about how to teach people, educate
people and help people and that's what's important. Right, that's
really what's important. So there's numerous Hadees to this
effect. I mean, you can, as a community, if there is a need,
then we should feel it as much as anybody else. I'm not even
speaking about international needs right now, although that's very
relevant as well. But the whole Muslim community should be like
one body as the Prophet said, a lot of them said either stuck in
her own itch, the girl who saw it will just get the visa hurry, will
will hammer that if just one portion is one part one limb, one
finger, one nail is being in pain is in pain is hurting, the entire
body should feel it. And that is why people start complaining in
the first place. But then they their concern gets misdirected.
This is the problem. To be honest, I think the majority of our
concerns that we have about our local organizations, they get
misdirected. While it starts off on a sincere level with genuine
concern about the betterment of our society. But then it gets
reduced to just complaints with shaytaan ones because he doesn't
want an improvement. So we then don't actually get any improve. We
keep waiting for somebody else to make that improvement. And we
start the blame game. So now the point here is that let's stop
doing all of that. And there's so many things that we can come up
with. So I want to ask to use our minds today from the list and of
things that we're going to look at today to try
To see what else we can come up with. And initially, our focus is
for couples.
Initially, our focus is for couples that what can you do as a
couple with your husband? Right? What project can you pick? That
he's good at? You're good at? Because I'm speaking to sisters
today. So that's why I'm targeting in that sense. How can you come up
with something? What is the way then we'll get what what do we
have to do for those things? And how do we put them now, these
things you don't have to do every day. I mean, people are busy,
you've got your own children to take care of, you've got your own,
maybe work that you're doing. You're maybe you're employed
somewhere, maybe you're doing some other great work teaching,
whatever the case is, and your husband's probably also working
and so on. What we want to then speak about is that it doesn't
have to be something you do every day, it could be something you do
once a week, you can do at weekends, or Friday nights, maybe
or one weekday night, it could be maybe something that you do every
two weeks, or maybe once a month, maybe not that maybe it can be
seasonal you do there's a there's a project that we need to do at
eat. Because maybe we need to try to get some qurbani meat together
and take it to people who are suffering who are who don't have
so much money or shelters, let them have some meat at that time
as well from the qurbani, they get the book and blessing as well.
Maybe some kind of Ramadan drive. So it could be a seasonal thing.
It doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to be just, it could be to do
with Hajj, maybe collect money to send people who are older now and
can't still go for Hajj, maybe you know, we can help them go for it.
So it could be seasonal things as well. There's no, there's no, you
know, there's no
limit as to how much you could do. And there's no minimum that you
must do, it's just getting an idea. And believe me,
it will have a huge impact. Because when you have a common
goal, you'd be surprised about the kinds of things you learn about
one another.
And when you do things together, and you you basically have to
experience successes and setbacks, and then think about how to deal
with so let's just say that you're doing your well, you're welcoming
homeless, you're welcoming refugees into the into the area,
right, you're, you're helping them set up home, for example, or
you're helping feeding for the food bank, right helping feeding
homeless people, for example, on a Friday or you know, weekend or
whatever it is, whether you're helping to educate, tutor
children, because you know, you're Your husband's a teacher, maybe
you're a teacher, you want to set up like tutoring for disadvantaged
children, or for needy children or for underprivileged, or whatever
it may be, you'll be surprised that you may run into a, you may
run into a bit of a challenge that where you're going to hold this,
right, because maybe your home is not big enough for it, you're
gonna run into a challenge, you're gonna start putting your minds
together.
Normally, you're bickering about silly things. But now you're
actually putting your mind together, to think about how you
can overcome this challenge, you suddenly become a team, Team,
develop teams develop love for one another, that it's just a natural
thing that when you do things with people, and you then start seeing
their qualities, because they're going to come up with some idea
that other that you may think is wonderful, that causes attraction.
And the thing is that this happens in the workplace, and sometimes to
the detriment of husband and wives of their married lives. Because
there's a lot of people who will say that, that the husband common
thing that the woman who works with that at his colleague, is
much better than his wife, because she seems to be so much more
intelligent or caring, or compassionate. You know, she, she
offers to make him tea once in a while, or she offers to help him
out with something. Likewise, a woman who's working, she's going
to think that about a male colleague, who might say, you
know, I'm going to the coach, should I bring you some coffee,
right. And she doesn't have to do that, or he doesn't have to do
that, or whatever it is, you know. So when you're working together,
and in a lot of jobs, you actually work on projects together. So then
when you have these setbacks, when you have challenges, you try to
come to common, you work on it together, you try to come to some
kind of some kind of escape from these things, some kind of
solution for these things, that brings you together. And then
after that, the most wonderful thing is that when you actually
finish a project, and you actually see the see the fruits of that
project, right, and in this case, if your volunteer tearing, that
kind of you know, the that kind of success, and that kind of result
is amazing, the kind of dopamine that it provides the kind of you
know, it just makes you want to do things again, and it brings you
closer together so that there can't be any harm in doing this.
And then it's a sadaqa jariya Inshallah, right the rewards that
you get for helping other people. The community improves if a family
unit improves.
If a husband and wife improves their children's situation,
environment will improve. If that improves, we'll have had a
healthier families healthier children in the community, right?
I just think better do better communities, families will
improve, because then eventually what's going to happen is somebody
is going to see you're doing that. And they're going to want to help.
But they're gonna want to do something similar. Right? For
example, I gave a talk about community about leaving sadaqa
jariya, leaving some kind of perpetual charity. And there was
several people that came to me, for example, is one of them. He
says, yes, there's an old man in that we know, he started helping
people, I think, in Bangladesh, or somewhere, or Myanmar, in Burma.
And, you know, we, we, he's an old man, right, and he collects
people's money, he and these, this this person that I was speaking
these men, they said that we've got much more access to funds than
he does. So we're gonna get encouraged. Now, they got
encouraged to do this by looking at that man, by listening to the
talk, they made that connection. And now they want to do the same
thing. So that old man who started that volunteering, you know, for
and helping that relief for Burma, he gets reward for what he's done.
But he's also now going to get reward for those people who've
been inspired by seeing what he's done. And that's just free reward
and free investment. So there's it this is just like a no brainer.
Now, I don't know what you're thinking sitting down here, you
know, like, what's your thoughts about this already? Like, what am
I going to do? Right, I can just imagine that she'd been telling us
like, what are you going to do? My husband? I'm not going to work
with him. Like, you know, what's he going to do? You know, don't
start off on the negative this listen to the possibilities. Now,
there's a few things here that I'm going to, I'm going to I'm going
to discuss that kind of gives us some idea of how you look at this.
Like, why should a person participate? I've mentioned a
number of things. And this is what people say, it gives you a way to
help others.
I mean, it gives you I mean, helping others has some of the
greatest level of satisfaction.
When you help others, and you see that they've been helped, and you
hear that they've been helped, they just does something, it makes
your life worth living.
It helps you improve your community. Right? It helps you I
mean, they say if your children get involved in helped to
strengthen their resume in college applications, I mean, it's,
that's, that's a side byproduct, Alhamdulillah, you're going to
meet a lot of new people in this, you're going to get access to a
lot of people's lives. And you will be enriched by that, it will
give you the opportunity to do sugar for what you have, when you
see what others don't have, and you're helping them and will give
you a cause for thanking Allah subhanaw taala, really, and it's
going to make you new friends, possibly, it's going to make maybe
some of them will be able to help you out with something else make
your life more enriched.
Of course, it results in personal growth, because it is mentioned
from a spiritual perspective. And also just as a human being, you're
going to feel better that when you leave this world that 100 Life
helped out this many 1000 people, or I've started this project and
that project and look, mashallah, it's continuing, right. And
there's, there's just numerous things, this is numerous things
like so there's a, there's a list here that I have, again, this is
just a list. And some of this may not be relevant to us. But I want
us to get ideas from this. So you know, maybe get out your pieces of
paper or phones or whatever and start thinking if you come up with
any ideas, put them down, and then I'll take your ideas. Inshallah,
at the end, these are just for consideration.
Now, firstly, you should probably try to think that,
is there a particular group of people that I would like to help?
Is there a particular cause that I'm very passionate about? Think
of the generally the cause you're passionate about is the one you
generally complain about. Right? So are you always complaining
about
education? Are you always complaining about the Masjid? Are
you always complaining about the committee? Are you always
complaining about poor people not enough is doing or not for Syria?
Right, for example, then maybe that's where your passion lies,
most likely, because that's the one you feel like you want to
complain about. It's possible. So what are your passions and
interests?
What are you good at? So maybe somebody is very good at baking.
So we're going to try to use baking in something. And you'd be
surprised what you can do with baking. Right? I mean, there's so
much that you can get through baking, you know, you can get
access to people like that. Right? You can help a lot of people that
you can generate a lot of funds like that as well. Are you good at
cooking?
Are you good at speaking? Are you good at coordinating?
Or are you just good at complaining?
What are you complaining about? So think about these things. So these
are some very random general ideas. I mean, some of the most
common ones, right? raising money for your local charity. So we have
numerous local charities, we have no Oil Fund, obviously we have, we
have the those containers that go to Syria, right, the aid for
Syria, aid convoy that goes to Syria. And we have a number of
others that, you know, I can't think of, you know, mentioning
their name right now, but there's numerous others. So you can just
get on to something that's already happening. That's generally easier
sometimes hold a bake sale for your favorite charity, your local
charity, another charity, your mother's, the local masjid, or
whatever the case is, or for the homeless shelter.
These are just some random things, right? Go and find a lonely person
in your community, an old grandparent whose children
unfortunately are neglecting their neglectful, they are working all
day they don't really look after she's just, I mean, she wants to
go back to India or Pakistan or somewhere.
You know, I really feel sorry for some of our old elderly here, they
want to go back to their village because there it's sunny, at
least, you know, they've got people to speak to there's always
somebody passing by. I remember I was in India just now for two days
in my village, and one of my dad's cousin brothers, like an uncle of
mine, it comes along and he was sitting outside, right? And he
says, I've just come to help you pass your time. I'm like, what is
that? For me, that's just really strange. Because, you know, when
you're always doing something or other, you don't have any time you
don't need pastime, right. But in a village, there's a lot of
pastime. That's why they do a lot of talking. And then it leads to
obviously a lot of Hebrew as well. But that's a problem. But, but
it's, it's very difficult for them to be here cooped up in a house
with the weather that we have. But the problem is that they can't go
back either. Because there's nobody there to look after them.
There's people to visit them, but there's nobody to look after them.
Because all their children are here, this is really weird limbo,
where in in this generation, it's probably going to take another
3050 years to resolve this. Because then eventually,
everybody's going to become, you know, second third generation
people here, their parents are going to be here as well. But this
is the thing that we have to think about. So you've got a lot of
people like this who are in their homes, they don't have anybody. So
it might be a good idea to go and speak to them. Not not doing
PunchOut, but just go and speak to them, whatever, then take them out
to maybe
maybe even gather them together for all peoples tea tea or
something like that just makes them feel a bit better. Right
leaves, removes the depression removes that kind of feeling from
them. And of course, we have actually got people and which
we've spoken about before. Here's what we've got people in all
people's homes as well. Right and Hamdulillah I think some sisters
did start going there. And I think that's really appreciated.
There's always charity auctions that are taking place, help
deliver. I mean, this is something that we don't probably do help
deliver meals and gifts to patients or local hospitals.
I mean, you just contact the Muslim chaplain, then they'll tell
you about the Muslims there who sometimes don't have any family,
there's nobody there to I mean, you know, a lot of our family
Alhamdulillah the hospital has to kick us out. Right? Because we
have so many people go to the hospital that we are kind of
overrun the hospital. And after then regulate the only two people
allowed otherwise, you know, mashallah, in our community,
especially the majority community, I mean, the whole, the whole clan
turns up at the hospital hamdulillah generally, but there's
a lot of people that doesn't happen to and there's people who's
not even there for curry Mandela. So that's why the chaplain has to
take care of that. But there's a lot of thing there's, there's even
women there who are giving birth, and they're from communities that
don't have an extended community, they new members of, you know, a
new community, and their their husband's at work, or he's
somewhere else, he can't be there. Right. So there's people that can
go and help them. In fact, there's people who are in hospitals, who
don't know how to speak English. A friend of mine, another Maulana he
was at, at the hospital for his wife, and he noticed that with a
few other women, and they were treated being treated really
badly. You know, by some of the nurses, you get that you know,
somebody that's it not all the nurses are the same measure that
we have really good nurses, but then you do have a few, you know,
are not willing to give the extra because maybe they're overworked
or whatever the case is. So that is another factor that women can
even take into consideration to go and find out from us and get some
relationship with the nurses there with the administration there,
that if you need somebody, we know we're willing to come in at least
once a week or whenever there's a need to help somebody out to do a
translation for people. Interpretation. That's an
important because, you know, we still have people who don't speak
English. I mean, it's there. It's they've just come new.
Right? So now let's kind of look at it more in a topical sense,
helping children in schools. Right. And again, think about what
you know, is more relevant to us. So tutoring children, you know,
after school or in weekends, and I know they had something like that.
Clapton, my brother, who's a teacher's at City Academy. He's he
and a few of his friends, they started like this where they would
tutor children in the weekends.
Right. And that was a free service that they were providing, because
that's how you're going to get better students, better children
from our community. That's a hikma. At the end of the day, you
have to have a good intention for this and it's a big, it's a good
kid, my inshallah. And those children will feel good about it.
Because if they psychologically feel that, you know, mashallah,
we've got a boost from our masjid, tutoring by our, you know, Masjid
through our masjid, they're going to it's going to strengthen their
bond with Islam, you're always worried about losing our children,
but we have to think out of the box, and more practically, about
how we can help them. So I don't know, I mean, many of you, our
children, our teachers and to, you know, have PGS or is a PGDCA, or
whatever, pgcs, or whatever you have, right? That that could be a
help there as well.
I mean, this isn't, these aren't my idea. So these sound a bit
weird, like, you know, knit baby blankets to be donated to
hospitals or homeless shelters. I mean, that's if you're good at
knitting, you'd probably think I'll just go and buy one, collect
baby clothes and supply supply them to, to donate to new parents.
There's probably parents out there who don't have, especially the new
refugees and others who don't have, you'd be surprised, you
know, working through novel, novel benevolence. And we've actually
discovered there's a lot of poor people. I know, we've mentioned
this before here. And I think over the last four or five years, we
probably spent over 100,000, just in the local area, just in
Hackney, Waltham Forest, and a bit of
what you call a forest gate area. Majority from Hackney though,
you'd be surprised how many people are in need in these areas, just
because you are eating well, and were eating well, and everyone or
your cousins have a nice house and they're sorted. It doesn't mean
everybody else is Hamdulillah. Allah has blessed our community,
there's no doubt about that. But there are that doesn't mean that
everybody else is right, that everybody else has the same kind
of mashallah disposable income that you do. Another one, if
you're good at sports or whatever, fitness, go and coach a youth
sports team, go and give exercise classes to our women. I mean, they
need it. Right? Because unfortunately, I mean, you know,
we don't have this tradition of exercise. So why are women do a
lot of work at home, they're moving around cooking. That's not
enough for the general fitness. Really, it's not the, it's not,
it's not enough for the general fitness, they say I move around
all day. But that's not enough. There has to be some exertion as
well. And there has to be some fitness classes and I'm sure they
always appreciated. So if you're good at that, and that's something
that you can assist with then then, you know, try to organize
that somewhere. Don't give up this you're gonna get treated that way
should we do it? The Masjid the community center, the the UN
organization we say no, you can't do it here for whatever reason,
well find another place. Keep trying to give free Quran lessons
to children or does like tutoring Quran in the weekend. Sometimes
the mother says not enough, the teacher has maybe 1520 students
and there's just not enough there's some children who need
more help offer that as a service.
I don't know if anybody does that. It looks like the Quran teaching
has all become like paid job, but you could don't do it for free.
Right? They are people they must be people and then it's not that
does not forget children. There are adults who don't read. They
just haven't had any teaching when they were young. If you don't see
that in your own community, meaning your own ethnic community,
look at another community. I'm telling you, there's a lot of
people out there who are struggling. They've never let read
Quran when they've been they've been growing up and they would
love to do so target that community get an access into the
community by finding an individual say look, you know, this is
something send out the WhatsApp so whatever it is, Allah has taught
you the Quran helped somebody mentor 11 Quran Allah, Allah Maha
Eurocom. The best of you, is highly recommend tilemill Quran
Allah Allah is the One who studied the Quran and who teaches it, this
is maybe your way of teaching it.
If you can get them to read the Quran before they die Subhanallah
what a wonderful thing. If you're good at speaking to people, and
like, you know, you've had some, maybe some experience with young
children become a volunteer for teen crisis. There's a lot of
teens out there who are undergoing crisis, they don't even want to
tell anybody, parents don't even tell anybody. But if we have
proper services in place, and proper people doing this, then
then I'm sure more people be willing to open up because then
people don't know where to go organise a summer reading program
to encourage children to read.
Write babysit children during a religious program. There's a lot
of need for that. I tell you that. Because, for example, I mean, the
biggest problem is that when women there's a women's program, or a
program that women can attend, one of the biggest stumbling blocks
for them the obstacles is generally where do they leave
their children? They take their children, they're gonna cause a
disturbance to others, right, this is their fear. Right? And you can
generally hear your child louder than anybody else. So you I mean,
there are some people are very insensitive, but most people will
hear that
Children. Right? So where do you leave them? So go and volunteer at
a program? Do you guys have babysitting facilities? No. Okay,
I'm willing to volunteer for that. babysitting. This is very
expensive. So that's why a lot of programs don't even think about
it. And mashallah, I think we've started here, and may Allah bless
those who are helping us in this regard, because this really helps.
I mean, women need time for that to themselves where somebody is
looking after the children, they can go and benefit. Why should it
be that it's only the men who are attending programs, and then you
keep complaining about their wives. And then they keep
complaining about women? Right, let's help them. But if the men
don't help you, you help yourself, you're not going to tell a long
day of judgment a minute and help us, they didn't organize it, go
and volunteer for it, you can do it the powers in your hand.
There's a lot of people who love to do these kinds of things, who a
lot of organizations that would love to offer these things, but
they don't know where to look, they're not fully committed. If
you find some, if you go and volunteer Subhanallah Can you
imagine all the reward you're gonna get for those parents who
learn and who be improve, will become reformed to do something
different, you're gonna get reward of their of, you're gonna get a
reward for a share of their reward. So it's not a waste of
time that you're doing.
organise a reading hour for children at a local school library
or masjid,
you know, for the younger children so that they get some association
with the masjid or whatever the case is. And again, this can be
part of a program. I remember, I was invited to this program in the
east of London. Further east. It was from the Nigerian community.
And I really liked what they had organized. So that while we were
doing the program, in a while I was speaking to the men and the
women, they had, I think they had the youth somewhere. And they had
the children in another program. So they'd actually invited
somebody to talk to the children and tell them stories, or whatever
it was, the youth had another program, and it was all the
parents that we were speaking to. So I thought that was very well
organized. We just don't have that concept of our programs.
For men, for women, and we forget the children, I mean, I would
allow it to like that we we give really, really hot foods, hot
biryani that the adults love and the children don't enjoy it.
Right? We just don't think about our children, these programs,
unfortunately.
And we do think about that we feed them pizza, junk food. So we got
no clever ideas in that. And that's really sad.
volunteer to help with an Islamic school or other religious program.
Right, any of your local organizations. You can volunteer
to help there. We've got nurseries, we've got community
centers, we've got housing associations, we've got
educational facilities, we've got academies, we've got, Institute's
we've got so many different things. And all of these places
need volunteers. I guarantee you all of these places need
volunteers. You know, whether that's to fix something, whether
that's to clean something, whether that's to sweep something, there's
a thing for everyone, I'm telling you that you'd be surprised. Think
what you can do and go and say, Look, this is what I'm willing to
do. Do you need some service here?
Right, I'm just going to quickly go through these because I want
time to hear from you. Helping senior citizens visit and read to
residents and nursing home, deliver groceries and meals to
elderly neighbors.
Or at least help them on ordering online these days. Right? That's
easy. You don't even have to go for them. What do you need order
online for them? Maybe they just don't know how to do it online
through Morrison's or whatever, right? teach computer skills to
the elderly. If they're always coming to can you fill in this
form for me? Can you do this for me? Well teach them or get some
older people and teach them I'm sure you guys there's a lot of you
are computer savvy.
Drive seniors to doctor appointments,
get them to doctor appointment hospital appointments. More an
elderly neighbor's lawn if they've got a nice lawn to clean their
house or whatever. Right? Help and gather this and distribute qurbani
meat to the needy and old and elderly and shelters. Pick up
medicine for an elderly neighbor. Because that's sometimes an issue.
Go to the doctor pick up that's a big hassle sometimes to go and get
your prescription help elderly neighbors clean their homes and
organize their belongings. Right? When it's snowing or something
gone help them you know, clear clear out the garden or whatever
it may or whatever it is. deliver food for them sometimes if they
need I mean you don't have to do this everyday, once a month you
give food to somebody that will be appreciate they're not gonna say
why don't you give it to me every day. If they're never getting like
a good food and if you give them good food that would be useful.
I mean, it could be something like you're going to growing flowers in
your backyard. Then make bouquets and give them to patients give
them to get get give them to people are going to be happy about
them.
Helping the hungry and homeless. Donate your old clothes, collect
other people's old clothes from your family and go and donate them
somewhere. Volunteer at soup kitchen
I donate non perishable food to a food bank, we waste a lot of food
by the way, right? Our Communities unfortunately waste a lot of
foods. So find some way that we can bring that together donate
blankets to a homeless shelter, host the Ramadan and eat dinner
for people who may not be able to cook for themselves and have that
same kind of enjoyment offered to babysitter nanny for a family in
need.
Right? prepare home cooked meal for the residents of nearby
homeless shelter, babysit children while their parents look for jobs
because they've just starting off maybe or they're going through
jobs and they're having the it's tough for them.
Bake a batch of cookies or loaf of bread or whatever and delivered to
a local soup kitchen. Or maybe do it for a masjid program or
something or whatever it is. Right? One as the kid is getting
happy here, right? Do it do it for this program, Mashallah.
Then there could be other things like reducing crime and promoting
safety in your community, that's something we're very behind. And
unfortunately, we just don't have that system. Whereas we know of
other communities that have that system in place. Organize a self
defense workshop. So if you're into your martial arts, because I
know we have sisters who are mashallah quite advanced, right in
terms of the, you know, some various martial arts, organize a
drug free campaign, starter, or join a neighborhood watch program,
create a distributor list of hotlines for people who might need
help, like just resources. And then, you know, email and WhatsApp
them out to everybody become with a CPR certified
first idea, become because you need some people like that
locally. I mean, if nothing else, plant flowers at your local Masjid
on Mother's Day, if they would appreciate it.
I don't know if anybody's ever thought of that. But that's a
great idea. Makes makes people feel good. And planting is a
massive therapy. Gardening they say is like a wonderful therapy.
It really helps. In fact,
they come out with some amazing there's what they call it a
Christine therapy right now, which is for ADHD kids. They're
benefiting from being with animals. So for ADHD kids, they
really help when they go and work with horses, start riding horses
start and caring for them. I mean, this is all natural stuff. I mean,
it's the computers which are messing us up. It's the games.
That's what's messing us up. It's messing up parents and messing
everybody up. We're completely losing our connection with our
nature without saved the animals with other people as well. So
there's so many other things. And again, this is not an exhaustive
list. Yeah, there's another another suggestion that we missed,
which was we've got a lot of mashallah reverts. And sometimes
they actually go through some very great difficulties, part of their
test Subhanallah to just get them closer to Allah. But it puts a
massive strain on the Eman and we need to help reverts. And I think
the best way to do that is the Prophetic way. And the prophetic
way is more our hearts.
Right? Because I remember there's in India, there's mashallah one
Sheikh who's done a lot of work in converting Hindus. And I said,
look, the problem we have here is that I get converted, but then
there's nobody look after him. He says, you need to do more our
hearts, which is create the Brotherhood or sisterhood in this
case, right sisters. So the idea is that there used to be a few
families that kind of adopt this sister in a sense to help her out.
Right, not in a way that they you know, that she's vulnerable or
whatever in that sense, but you know, you know, in a very
respectable in a respectable manner that they can help them
out. And because we need to strengthen, we need to have
strength in that regard. That's very important. Otherwise a lot of
people lose I mean, there's people could lose their faith in this
regard, and it's our fault because we didn't help. So we ask Allah
for assistance, just like a large hadron particle Lovick